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The No. 9 West Virginia women's basketball team couldn't take advantage of an early second-half run as the Mountaineers were defeated 60-32 by No. 1 Connecticut in the Big East Conference Championship Tuesday.
The Mountaineers used a late first-half scoring outburst to go into halftime trailing by 10 and cut the once 17-point UConn lead to 33-28 with 15:57 remaining after a Liz Repella 3-pointer and a Natalie Burton free throw.
But the Huskies went on a 27-5 run to close out the game, recording their 72nd consecutive victory in the process.
"We cut it to five, and we had a couple bad shots, and they had a couple of offensive rebounds," said WVU head coach Mike Carey. "The game got very physical, and were not going to win that battle with them."
The Mountaineers shot just 1-for-13 in the final 11:59 of the game. West Virginia shot just 19.2 percent from the field in the second half and 24.1 percent for the game.
"All eight of them did a pretty good job on defense," Carey said referring to the officiating.
The Huskies hit fire in the second half, shooting 47.8 percent from the field. UConn's Kalana Greene led the Huskies with 15 points, 12 rebounds and three assists.
More importantly for the Huskies, Greene stepped up in the absence of all-Americans Maya Moore and Tina Charles who combined to hit just three of their first 22 shots.
"She's always the blue collar worker on this team," Carey said of Greene. "She plays defense and dives on the floor. She complements the others very, very well and is able to accept her role."
It was Connecticut's fifth conference tournament championship in six years, while they will enter the NCAA
Tournament undefeated for the fifth time in school history.
The Huskies took little time getting to an early lead as they turned a 17-4 run into a 25-10 advantage with 7:25 left in the first half. Meanwhile, the Mountaineers went scoreless for nearly six minutes, but were able to stop the run and go into the locker room down 30-20.
"They have good defenders at every position," said Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma. "They make it difficult to get the shots you want. You have to make plays against them and create.
"I wouldn't want to play them in the NCAA Tournament, no way."
Carey said he was satisfied with his team's defensive play. The Mountaineers held the nation's second leading scoring offense (82.9 ppg) to just 60 points – its second-lowest point total of the season.
Moore said it was due to the Mountaineers' up-tempo style of play.
"They did a great job trying to speed us up and take us out of our rhythm," Moore said. "We have to do a better job of handling other teams trying to speed us up."
Repella finished with a team-high 10 points to lead WVU, while the junior and teammate Sarah Miles were both named to the all-tournament team.
West Virginia will have three days off until they will get back to practice in preparation on the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
"We still have a lot of goals to accomplish," Repella said. "We're going to come back out and ready to play."
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